CSY Replay #8: The Midwest As a New American Nation
Another way of looking at the Midwest as a distinct regional American culture.
An updated version of my Midwestern subregional map. The purple counties are the region’s 15 metro areas with more than one million people. Source: Pete Saunders
( I have something coming soon that will look at one of the 2024 election’s most significant issues — immigration — and its potential impact on this vital region. This seemed like a decent leadup to what will follow. -Pete)
Originally posted: January 19, 2020
Back in December I reposted a series that I view as a primer for understanding the broad middle of the country commonly defined as the Midwest. I followed that up with a little bit of a demographic analysis that shows how the Midwest diverges from its New England roots and other Northern neighbors.
Today, in my quest to recognize the Midwest as a distinct region, I present a geopolitical case that shows the cultural differences at the core.
Recently I wondered about population data for each of the eleven "nations" identified by Colin Woodard in his book American Nations. For those unaware (and if you aren't, you should get aware; it's a great read), Woodard's theme is that eleven distinct regional cultures developed in America, and since their formation have jostled among each other to pursue social and political control of the nation. Quickly, the nations he identified are:
Yankeedom, comprising New England, most of New York State, and areas bordering the Great Lakes;
New Netherland, made up of New York City, Long Island and northern New Jersey, where Dutch influence was strongest;
The Midlands, the band of territory that stretches from southern New Jersey to eastern Nebraska, where English Quakers, German immigrants and a moderate ideology led the way;
Tidewater, the original Southern homeland centered on Chesapeake Bay and settled by early English gentry;
Greater Appalachia, the broad area stretching from western Pennsylvania to Oklahoma, through the Ohio and Tennessee River valleys, settled by Scotch-Irish immigrants;
The Deep South, including the south Atlantic and Gulf Coast areas from North Carolina to Texas, where the caste system exemplified by American slavery was strongest;
New France, the area of southern Louisiana centered on New Orleans defined by early French influence (and also including Quebec and other parts of southeastern Canada);
The Far West, a remote and dry section of the nation extending from the Great Plains to the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountains, defined more by the environment than ethnicity;
El Norte, the American portions of the southwest border with Mexico where the Spanish Empire was strongest;
The Left Coast, the narrow strip of land stretching from central California to the Canadian border between the Pacific and the Cascade Mountains that shares a social and political ideology with Yankeedom; and
First Nation, or Alaska and the northernmost parts of Canada that retain significant Native American cultural influence.
Woodard mentioned two other "nations" that received less discussion in his book: South Florida is included in Spanish Caribbean, and Hawaii is part of Greater Polynesia, both of which are anchored in areas beyond U.S. borders.
Here's a map:
Colin was kind enough to point me to population data by nation compiled on his behalf, and data on 2016 U.S. presidential election voting margins by nation as well. I found some interesting things.
Using the 2016 presidential election data as a gauge, I'd say that the nations currently align in two distinct coalitions -- one I'd call communitarian that leans liberal politically and generally supported Democrats, and another I'd call libertarian that leans conservative politically and generally supported Republicans. They break down in this fashion, listed by the size of their Democratic or Republican voting margins:
· Communitarian coalition: New Netherland, Left Coast, El Norte, Spanish Caribbean, Tidewater, Yankeedom, Midlands
· Libertarian coalition: Greater Appalachia, New France, Deep South, Far West
I’d also wager that, throughout American history, the defining characteristics of each subculture has remained remarkably stable. Despite shifts in political party ideology and policy, or what constitutes liberalism or conservatism over time, the subcultures have been fairly stable. What does alter them somewhat is demographic change; newcomers from other “nations” can change a state’s political landscape at the margins.
By my estimate, the communitarian coalition has political control over 15 states. These include most of the large and largely urban states on the East and West coasts, and some smaller states adjacent to them: Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut and Illinois in Yankeedom; New York and New Jersey in New Netherland; Delaware and Maryland in Tidewater; California and New Mexico in El Norte; Washington and Oregon representing the Left Coast; and Hawaii. Altogether these states currently hold 183 electoral votes.
The libertarian coalition has political control over 20 states. These are mostly in the middle of the nation stretching from the Canadian to the Mexican borders. They are: Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota in the Midlands; West Virginia, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma in Greater Appalachia; South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi in the Deep South; Louisiana representing New France; and Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah in the Far West. In all these states have 136 electoral votes.
In between are 15 states that can be considered either eclectic mixes of American cultural nations, or, in political parlance, swing states. These states often lean slightly one way or another, depending on economic conditions or their association with adjacent coalitions. Those that generally lean with the communitarian coalition include New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota in Yankeedom and Pennsylvania in the Midlands nation. Those historically in the middle include Virginia and North Carolina in Tidewater, Florida with its blend of Deep South and Spanish Caribbean, and Colorado and Nevada in the Far West. The states that often lean with the libertarian coalition are Ohio and Iowa from the Midlands; Texas, which includes a big swath of Greater Appalachia; Georgia in the Deep South and Arizona in the Far West. Together these states have 219 electoral votes and of course, hold a lot of our attention on election nights.
But let’s focus in on the eleven states that make up the majority of the Yankeedom nation on the map (states with small population portions of Yankeedom, like Ohio, Indiana and Iowa, were excluded). It’s clear that when you look at state level voting totals, there’s a distinct difference between the New England/upstate New York part of Yankeedom, and the Great Lakes portion. In the 2016 presidential election, the eastern half of Yankeedom (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York) overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton; at the state level they averaged 53% in favor of Clinton and 39% in favor of Donald Trump. But the states that made up the western portion of Yankeedom (Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota) narrowly voted for Clinton, 49% to 44%. Remove Illinois from the equation, largely a Heartland and Greater Appalachia state geographically, but with its population dominated by Yankeedom Chicago, the gap tightens even more: 46.8% for Clinton, 46.6% for Trump. Clearly the voting patterns are quite different.
This east/west split in Yankeedom isn’t new. Most political observers are quite aware of the “Reagan Democrats” phenomenon in the 1980 presidential election that flipped the election for Ronald Reagan. For decades states like Michigan and Illinois elected to Congress many of the same type of moderate, fiscally conservative but socially liberal Republicans familiar to many in the Northeast, before also moving toward Democrats in the 70’s. But the economic dissatisfaction that came with the beginning of the manufacturing contraction began to push many former New Deal Democrats into the hands of the GOP.
The problem is that the broader coalitions have obscured the subculture differences for some time. For example, there are differences between Deep South and Greater Appalachian residents, but outsiders may view them to be very much the same. The same could be said about Left Coast and El Norte residents; someone from the Deep South or Appalachia might see Northern and Southern Californians as pretty similar, even when they’re quite different.
There’s even a comparable rift within the American Nations model that can explain an east/west Yankeedom split. The Tidewater nation, centered around Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, is one of the oldest of American subregions. What we associate with Southern culture initially developed here – the early plantation-based economy, the rigid class system and honor-oriented society. At Tidewater’s founding there was very little Deep South to speak of; South Carolina and Georgia had been founded as colonies but were lightly settled compared to the Tidewater states. The states further west had yet to be established.
But as America moved westward and created new cultural blends, new “nations” or subregions formed. Tidewater natives were the pioneers who settled Alabama, Mississippi, northern Florida and northern Louisiana, and Arkansas, establishing the Deep South along the way. The Tidewater they left behind changed as well. The growth of large cities like Baltimore and Washington, D.C., and the influx of Northern and international migrants, began to give Tidewater a demographic profile much more similar to the rest of the Northeast.
I think the Midwest has moved away from its New England roots in much the same way that the Deep South left Tidewater behind. Differences in demographics and economies has pushed the Midwest further from Yankeedom at least since World War II. If the Midwest is going to resurge as a region, it will have to embrace its distinctive character and find a new reason for being – very much like the Deep South/Greater Appalachia/Tidewater triumvirate did in the century following the Civil War.
The Midwest will have to know what it is before it can understand what it can be.